1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to an accelerometer and gyroscope system, and, more particularly, to a combined accelerometer and gyroscope system, which can measure an acceleration and an angular velocity that are input in directions perpendicular to each other.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, inertial sensors for measuring an inertial force can be classified into an accelerometer and a gyroscope, which have been developed as independent inertial sensors and are marketed as individual devices. Accordingly, recently, methods using both an accelerometer and a gyroscope, as in the case of fields in which an inertial force is measured, or a location and a posture are calculated, have been promoted.
Meanwhile, in an inertial measurement unit for measuring inertial force in three axes, such as in an aircraft, missile or a submarine, three or more accelerometers and three or more gyroscopes are required. In order to manufacture such an inertial measurement unit, an inter-axis alignment procedure must be performed in order to align the three axes with each other in perpendicular directions. However, such inter-axis alignment incurs a high cost and takes a lot of time in the stage of manufacturing an inertial measurement unit, and the perpendicular alignment of a gyroscope entails a more complicated procedure than an accelerometer.
The use of individual accelerometers and gyroscopes in fields, in which accelerations and angular velocities for two or more axes are used together, is disadvantageous in that the size and cost thereof are increased, and, additionally, a lot of time and effort is required to conduct alignment between a number of sensor input axes proportional to the number of sensors.
Therefore, when a plurality of accelerometers and gyroscopes for measuring inertial forces input to a plurality of axes is used, the development of inertial sensors having sensor input angles that are structurally aligned with each other using a single mechanical structure is urgently required.